Guild Wars 2

I personally would like to see dungeons handled similar to gw1. In guild wars 1, you could simply explore an isolated sandbox with some procedurally generated bosses. I’d love to see something akin to black rock depths in WoW where it was literally civilization underground and there was multiple directions that you can take depending on how much time you wanted to spend. It was none linear due to how the rooms were connected and how the bosses were placed. A sorrows furnace in guild wars 2 would be great.

To answer your direct question to me stihl. I had purchased the tier 3 ultimate edition each release which is 100 or so dollars each time. Gem purchases were regular for a little bit until everything dungeons became a corner stack fest with people getting booted out of groups for playing necro at which point I didn’t want to be associated with the game anymore.

When heart of thorns was announced it was perceived that the cheese meta was to be eliminated via more complex ai and a less emphasis on zerker nuking content so I had purchased the ultimate edition for that reason. For a time in raids at least in the beginning people were using all sorts of different builds rather than the high meta builds which is what I wanted to see, hell world first featured a condition scrapper from what I remember. For a time pwiw ideology existed, play what was desired but play it well.

I do not think of myself in the way you described, allow me to clarify. I am a big advocate of luminosity, I believe games should be more educational and should test the brain, not do the opposite which is why I stay away from most phone games. Our children who will be our future are not taught the values of working for a reward, many just want it now with no commitment. This message needs to change, games can be a part of that message. A few years ago a person put on their job application that they play world of Warcraft and landed a high level management position. I want to be able to do that same for guildwars 2. I want to be proud of the fact that I play this game and be able to tell other people in real life that I play this game. This is why challenging content must exist.

Unpopular opinion,

Toughness needs to be reworked completely into a semi offensive stat.

The amount of damage reduction given from toughness is too much.

1. Many bosses can be face tanked completely with no real need to dodge. This is suppose to be an action game, not classic pen and paper.
2. The WvW toughness blob is a problem, you can steamroll a lot of people while seige does very little.
3. Reducing its effectiveness will help with the sustain meta in spvp.

Proposal.

Vitality and Toughness should scale with abilities in exchange for a hit in their stat contribution.

Toughness should take a hit in the amount of armor it provides the player in exchange for allowing it to scale with various stuns making a toughness build like a stun warrior or scrapper more offensively menacing, giving them better quality breakbar, while making sustain for a lot of builds less excessive (ventari revenant can be pretty excessive in both WvW and sPvP, its amazing, I love it but I’m sure its not fun being on the opposite end of the stick).

Vitality should take a hit in its health contribution in exchange for scaling with various abilities as well. The necromancers life force scales with vitality, perhaps other professions could receive the same treatment like revenant getting a larger energy pool, warriors generating adrenaline faster, or thief getting faster initiative regeneration.

In this way, stacking these stats is rewarded through active play. Gone are the days where toughness is seen as some type of training wheel in PvE, now it’s valued for breakbar potential and good stuns, vitality allows for better generation of skill resources and who doesn’t love pressing skills more often?

Open to criticism.

Motorcycles, guns, sunglasses, popped collars, and whisky

STIHL.2489:

Feanor.2358:

STIHL.2489:

Feanor.2358:

STIHL.2489:

What can I say, I’m an honest guy, unlike the people that try to pass it off that they just want the challenge or whatever… really everyone in these discussions knew that its always been and only ever will be about the loot... nothing else maters.

Maybe now we can dispense with the facade that there is any other motive, and make the loot accessible so we can all stop talking about the raid.

If you’re after the loot, you should probably just chestfarm Silverwastes. It’s never only the loot.

So you would be fine if players could get Legendary Armor from doing a Chest Farm in Silverwastes, Didn’t think so… Its always only about the loot

Nice strawman. But still incorrect. The problem isn’t the loot, the problem is what you propose would kill raids.

If changing the loot would kill the raid, then it was always about the loot, it’s not about the fun, or the challenge, or any of the other snake oil reasons that get passed off, it all boils down to loot, That’s how they killed dungeons, by doing nothing but modifying the loot.

So can we all just admit to it now?

Okay so if it is admitted that it was always about loot, then what? Why is this bad? You have yet to give proper reason as to why locking prestige behind challenge is any way shape or form bad when we have clear societal reasons that dictate that doing so benefits society as an entirety and provides people an avenue to become someone better than they are now. I can give you millions of reasons as to why its good to do this.

Leo G.4501:

Firebrand is a term, when referring to a person, used to describe someone who causes unrest or strife in a group by aggressively promoting a cause. In a religious tone, it’s someone who preaches in an aggressive way. It harkens to a period of evangelical firebrands that would call people sinners and how they’d burn in hell.

A good reason to call it that as far as lore is concerned as the Guildwars 2 Firebrand projects those evangelical desires in the name of protecting the ancient texts of elona.

In this case the name kills two birds with one stone.

Brand in pen and paper or JRPGs like final fantasy also refers to enchanting weapons with elemental effects like icebrand or lightningbrand.

Guess how the firebrand deals damage? via enchanted fire axe attacks.

Firebrand is probably one of the best possible names for this elite spec due to its historical and fantasy nature.

DPS scepter guard is probably the only guardian spec that is in the back, generally for reasons like being part of the green group in vale guardian.

Otherwise more preferred specs like a protection hammer guard has you up front in melee.

They are easier than some of the dungeon paths that we have today. The guild that I raid with can clear every boss in the wings with almost no effort but will die left and right on Honor of the Waves, how people struggle with that instance I will never know.

Raids are already easy enough as long as everyone in the group is willing to:

1. Give the encounter 100% of their attention, this means turning off Youtube for a small amount of time, stop looking at the television while trying to do Xera and focus on platforms, stop trying to brown ground beef on the stove top while trying to do the ball on keep construct. Better yet, maybe fold your laundry before the raid or after and not during Sabetha. Many people can already multitask at this level yes but if its new content for the player, the general suggestion is to give it a small amount of full attention at the very least.

2. Understand that failure is a part of the road to success regardless of the medium of the trial, much like any other part of real life video games for the most part are suppose to give you an artificial environment where you can fail with little repercussion.

3. Understand that everyone is in it together, if you don’t value other people then you don’t deserve to succeed in a raid.

Granted the problems run deeper than the above. I can only remember the time that Sodapoppin tried to play Guild Wars 2 a while back and how he viewed the game. Many people will come to the game thinking you can trade blows and kill the target like a pen and paper type RPG such as World of Warcraft when reality its more of a card counter hack and slash hybrid type battle system that plays like a cross between wildstar and guildwars 1 and because of the disconnect between what the game designer expects and what the player expects, the player will struggle to understand what needs to be done to succeed, hence why the new player experience was attempted.

DPS rotations are expected in the game that is more than just pressing 1 and when this isn’t communicated in an in game manner either through a WoW style proving ground or through the player story it is not surprising when people don’t understand what a breakbar is or how to interact with different elemental fields properly but that is an entirely different subject in itself.

I am in favor of a training ground like a hybrid between Shing Jea Monastery or the Battle Preperations segment of Nightfall that teaches you all the fundamentals that are needed to succeed in any area of the game.

You can give a man a fish so he can feed for a day or you can teach a man to fish and he will feed himself for the rest of his life.

My personal opinion? I’d choose the second. Its another project but it will make it 1000 times easier for people to understand and appreciate what the game has to offer and will put players and developers on the same page.

I thought endurance recharge was like 20 seconds or something for a full bar not 1 hour

Someone mind correcting me. I don’t meta game often.

Even if op was telling facts. Gw2 was advertised as a high social experience meaning requiring of high social conduct. Complaining about hot being nothing but group events is like complaining that a steakhouse is serving nothing but steak.

How the hell do you get destroyed by a low level icebrood elemental as a max level character in BiS gear of all things. I am literally convinced someone could approach you IRL with a crowbar, tell you that he’s gonna swing his crowbar at you, then proceed to do it in almost slowmotion, and still hit you with it.

To be quite honest, the only point in levels in this game was to slow down your ability to get through areas and to satisfy the power mongers that are easily tricked by the idea of increasing static numbers when the only thing that actually matters in effective TTK is percentages regardless of static number output, you scale down when you go back to previous areas in an attempt to control your power level to begin with in contrast to other MMOs.

If they took levels out completely in GW2 the difference would be negligible.

Astralporing.1957:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

The future of our 5 man end game content consists of 3 minute 1 room encounters with no intricacy in level design, am I the only person in this entire game who thinks this is absurd?

You weren’t saying anything about the short fractals. You were saying that it’s a good idea to buff the longest one. In this, yeah, i think you’re pretty much alone.

The fractal wasn’t difficult or long because of two things

1. Archdiviner has a predictable attack pattern in which you can almost afk kill him,
2. There are these things in this game called Skills, you may not have heard of them based on your current impression of the fractal, they allow you, the player to interact with the things laid out in the game in certain ways like dealing damage to an enemy target, causing your character to leap forward or allow an entire party to teleport to a certain desired location.

let me get some articles for you.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skill

Some Examples:

Greatsword

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Leap_of_Faith
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rush
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Whirlwind_Attack
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Swoop

Sword

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flashing_Blade
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Savage_Leap
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hornet_Sting
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infiltrator's_Strike

Warhorn

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Charge_
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Locust_Swarm
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Call_of_the_Wild

Staff

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Symbol_of_Swiftness
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Surge_of_the_Mists
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vault
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Burning_Retreat
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phase_Retreat

Mesmer Utility

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Portal_Entre

Elementalist Utility

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lightning_Flash

You can also interact with this thing called an elemental field or combo field to provide certain benefits to your party. This is a great example:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lightning_field

When you look at the table and see the line called “blast”, it provides this benefit called a “boon”, a universal buff that applies a benefit, in this case increased movement speed under the name of “swiftness”.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Swiftness.

This is just 1 small example of how you can customize your play to not only provide unique flavor to your experience but also provide you with exceptional benefits in combat.

Try it out, you won’t regret it.

Sublimatio.6981:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

The day when we ask for shorter content and not longer.

Then again I was one of the people who were upset with how small the expansion was.

thats not the point, everyone would like to have more HoT story steps/maps/things to do. These are fractals, it works differently. too long=annoying.

The future of our 5 man end game content consists of 3 minute 1 room encounters with no intricacy in level design, am I the only person in this entire game who thinks this is absurd?

The day when we ask for shorter content and not longer.

Then again I was one of the people who were upset with how small the expansion was.

Astralporing.1957:

Apparently that fractal just wasn’t difficult/long enough and required an upgrade.

I agree.

Archdiviner’s attack rotations were easily exploitable as long as no one used breakbar making him almost mindless to kill. The stack spots pretty much destroyed any level of difficulty the fractal had not to mention the nerfs in mob density.

I’m hoping they use the new AI on him to make him more aware.

James Quall.6029:

Donari.5237:

This works nicely on human females. Haven’t tested other females yet, because after dyeing it for two of them my next alt up in rotation to pick a color scheme was a male sylvari. I didn’t even bother to dye it on him because I was too busy flashing back to the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, and laughing and saying Oh Hell No. I promise the dyes in the shot below look very elegant on the Lyssa Outfit.

I love how the sylvari looks like he is trapped in a water heater but the human’s outfit manages to perfectly fit every curve and contour of her body despite being made of heavy plating and rivets. I wonder why that might be!

Might be because the outfit design team are sexist/anti feminism.

I guess we can leave it to games like Bloodborne/Souls Series to get armor right between the two genders.

Talyn.3295:

Not sure if ten thiefs could be do able. Granted its possible, but the extreme lack of healing is going to be the thing holding a full 10 man thief group back.

I recall a video of it being tried, but I can’t find the link right now.

what.

Delus.3260:

Hi, I’ve been play necromancer for 2 years now and it’s been okay for me but I wonder if I really need to change to another class to play high level fractals.

I play power necro(reaper build) with utilities , such as sucking conditions etc.., that help party members and have considerbly fine DPS and high survival rate but my friends keep saying that I should change my class to mesmer which can get all the gears from necro.
So…does necro really have no significant advantages againt mesmer or anyother classes?

No you do not need to change professions.

Even if your friends end up rejecting your company later on, you’re a necro, with the exception of say dredge which requires multiple physical bodies, you can solo high level fractals with your feet if you wanted.

I personally do not understand why this is a thing myself.

Even at high levels you can face tank him completely even in full glass and wolves will get cut down by cleaves anyways.

Some will think this is completely off topic, but this has everything to do with this specific subject.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand

Toodles.

deSade.9437:

GrimmR.3541:

I did have fun. I still run dungeons and so do some of my friends.
Still, it is nice to do content you enjoy while actually getting rewards for ir, isn’kitten

No, apparently only nutties wanna get shinies while doing stuffs and having fun; the smart ones do it for FUN only.

doing stuffs and having fun=error, this kitten doesn’t exist.
Search “toxic elitism” instead?

FUN=not skipping and playing as “intended”. No other definitions of fun are currently accepted or supported by our jurisdiction. Please call back later.

We all have our definitions of fun.

My definition of fun is learning and getting better to the point that I can defy logic and convention itself.

Pulling mobs around a corner and beating it up like they are little kids while some random yells at you for not taking the easy way out(picking up a meta build and reading a guide before you even know the value of the words that are written) is not my idea of fun, I do not learn anything from shooting fish in a barrel. Taking on 10 champions solo that can by themselves obliterate you toe to toe with a procedural AI to boot? That is my idea of fun because even if I lose, I can walk away stronger even if bruised.

I work out to tear my muscles so I can come back stronger
I stress my head out with textbooks and tests so I can come back smarter
Why is everyone so opposed to videogaming being something of that light? I want videogames to be respected as a medium for empowerment, not some power fantasy lie that fuels a gambling addiction with black lion chests and a meaningless pat on the back lie congratulating you for being able to solve basic algebra at the age of 30.

I envy WoW because of one reason, and that reason is that someone can be so proud of that game they play that they can literally put it on their resume, apply for a job, and successfully score the position, a big boy job at that, not some low collar one.

When was the last time you heard of someone putting “I play GW2” on their resume for a high ranking position of importance?

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

I’m I the only one who is very very happy to see dungeons abandoned?

It’s so nice to open LFG for a change and not see “MetaZerk ONLY”, 2 eles/PSwarr/GRD

It’s so nice to have content that is not being destroyed by IceBows/FGS/YouNameIt…

It’s so nice to see bosses having time to use their mechanics for a change…

It’s nice to have any kind of end game where people are not trying to record run it for once…

Kinda like dried out moldy bread sitting on the counter because the bag was left unintended. You’re glad that spoiled food is out of your living space but at the same time would have preferred that the bread loaf was not spoiled in the first place so you could enjoy it.

A set of NPCs that procedurally generates as your expected hard counter or mirrors your direct comp and plays perfectly.

They say that your greatest enemy is yourself, or perhaps your greatest enemy is your greatest flaws. Either way, it would be one hell of a fight.

#everyoneinminstrelsornomads

Skittles I don’t know what types of friends you got but real friends will stick with you no matter what. I poured my energy into helping my friends on their gorseval attempt which lasted 8 entire hours, we failed but after some positive energy they almost have him down with no personal incentive to get any rewards because they were my friends.

Maybe you should take a step back and rethink on how you define the word friend and who you label it with because it sounds to me that they aren’t really your friends.

Just a personal observation based on what your saying.

I have guildmates who are complete strangers still helping someone complete their dungeon master title because he doesn’t have it yet after 2 years of playing this game.

Fun Facts:

1. High Social Environment does not mean casual friendly, as far as technical definition is concerned it actually means requiring of High Social Skills, so when someone says this is a High Social Experience he means you need to have excellent communication skills. Guess what game environment requires that? Raids. Anyone who has put “High Social Skills” on their resume knows this.
2. Dungeons originally were suppose to be harder than the raids that were released with GW2 Hot. It was advertised kitten. Dungeons were nerfed to satisfy the WoW kiddies who came to the game. that couldn’t function out of the UI fiesta that WoW has become.
3. Aside from the grind fest added in HoT, the CGC released in HoT is in line with the original intentions of Anet.

Exotrax.4207:

ugrakarma.9416:

i have full ascedend, but dont like overzealous game modes, so im avoiding raids til someday i see on LFG something like “all welcome”.

well said !!!

Unfortunately will not come to pass as the group as a whole must suffice various “hard-gates” that the encounter asks for which include:

condition damage
boon strip
breakbar
overall damage

Not really elitism when its just more of “if you don’t have it, you can’t even deal damage to the boss”. Outside of that of course there are many absurd requests like only excepting condition engineers specifically geared in vipers armor when all condition damage specific builds across all professions(yes, including the rev) are more than capable of sufficing VG, or druids specifically geared in zealots, or better yet only excepting a vipers burnzerker warrior for gorseval.

“all welcome” has taken a different form in a sense that is:

“need condition damage”
“need a tank”
“need a healer”
“need dps”

In a sense that a group has asked that this role be fulfilled regardless of profession given. As more “restricting” and “overzealous” raids are, I have seen more build diversity in raids than the entire since launch that I’ve done dungeons in this game.

Raids have justified toughness as a respected toolset that controls aggro rather than some “offensive defensive training wheels slider”. It has allowed people who really wanted to play a healing power build, actually play a healing power build and be respected in that light. Overall there is more respect for understanding these toolsets that I personally feel deserves commendation.

Those of you blaming HoT for turning the GW2 community into a cesspool clearly didn’t play GW2 pre-HoT.

The amount of bile in dragon stand has nothing on the trolling in WvW, the smack talk in sPvP, or booting people last minute out of a dungeon run.

Astralporing.1957:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

And you are aware that 5 hours of wiping on your first clear is actually super fast right? People literally spent weeks on their first Vale Guard kill, 5 hours is GODLIKE on first kills.

Astralporing.1957:

…then it is not casual friendly. People willing to spend weeks failing a specific content just to learn how to do it are not casual players.

What is your definition of time spent for a casual player? 5 minutes a week? If two hours on a single day is what you got an entire week, that is still fantastic time for learning raids.

…erm, maybe you should look at your own post first, because when saying “weeks” you definitely didn’t think of 2 hours (remember, as you said 5 hours would be “godlike” in comparison, and we’re talking about averages and not GWAMMs here).

You definitely meant way, way more than those 5 hours, so don’t now pretend otherwise.

And as i’ve said already, that’s not really casual.

Maybe you should reread what i said? 2 hours a week learning content still nets you tokens? Which is still progress?

The biggest reason as to why one of my groups took weeks to down vale guardian alone is because we only have a couple hours on sunday to raid together so yeah my statements are pretty consistent.

Astralporing.1957:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

And you are aware that 5 hours of wiping on your first clear is actually super fast right? People literally spent weeks on their first Vale Guard kill, 5 hours is GODLIKE on first kills.

…then it is not casual friendly. People willing to spend weeks failing a specific content just to learn how to do it are not casual players.

What is your definition of time spent for a casual player? 5 minutes a week? If two hours on a single day is what you got an entire week, that is still fantastic time for learning raids.

Regardless of whether I am lying or not your clear time expectations is literally the most absurd thing I’ve heard of since the game started.

And you are aware that 5 hours of wiping on your first clear is actually super fast right? People literally spent weeks on their first Vale Guard kill, 5 hours is GODLIKE on first kills.

Your clear time expectations are impossible, it dwarfs even the most elitist I’ve met in WoW: WoD, which is a cesspool. You literally make that place look like hello kitty island adventures in comparison.

Gewd.8125:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

You
Got
Carried
Through
Raids
Gewd

That’s why it wasn’t hard for you, because you slacked while others had to pick up after you. You didn’t take a leadership position neither did you deal with high administrative stuff to ensure everything was logistically clean for your guild. Now we have content where you have to pull your weight and that’s why its hard for you, because you can’t get others to do your job for you.

Gewd.8125:

It is too hard for most players. This is an observable fact.

I joined a pug yesterday with a few people that supposedly already beat VG.

The tank was pulling too slow and spawning the green circle in aoe fields, and not enough people got on the green circle. And this kept happening for over an hour even though everyone was told after every wipe what they needed to do. And for some reason, they couldn’t do it.

Your expecting people to adapt perfectly within the hour? are you serious? and I thought Nike and the rest of DnT were elitists.

Not even mythic raiders in WoW expect that and that environment can get more toxic fast.

Ok and how does that counter anything I said? I have been arguing that raids should have enough slack so you can carry friends that aren’t very good or being able to use pugs.

There is not much reason for having raids be extremely taxing for everyone in the group, other than for no-lifers to flaunt their raid clears.

1 hour is quite a bit of time for people who have already done VG. At an average of 5 minutes per attempt, this is 12 attempts….

It actually does have enough slack for you to carry friends?

I’ve helped teach a group who used literally

0 consumables
run hybrid gear NOT even glass meta dps specs
with a druid who didn’t realize some pets have toughness stats that mess with AI, we spent a couple hours until we found that problem out.
Eventually downing vale guardian
so yes you have slack.

Just because you know what to do doesn’t mean your gonna do it perfectly each time. People are human, we make mistakes, we aren’t robots, that is a part of who we are and you will respect that. If you can’t tolerate the fact that humans are going to be human for a couple hours straight I got a recommendation for you.

Don’t go outside.

You
Got
Carried
Through
Raids
Gewd

That’s why it wasn’t hard for you, because you slacked while others had to pick up after you. You didn’t take a leadership position neither did you deal with high administrative stuff to ensure everything was logistically clean for your guild. Now we have content where you have to pull your weight and that’s why its hard for you, because you can’t get others to do your job for you.

Gewd.8125:

It is too hard for most players. This is an observable fact.

I joined a pug yesterday with a few people that supposedly already beat VG.

The tank was pulling too slow and spawning the green circle in aoe fields, and not enough people got on the green circle. And this kept happening for over an hour even though everyone was told after every wipe what they needed to do. And for some reason, they couldn’t do it.

Your expecting people to adapt perfectly within the hour? are you serious? and I thought Nike and the rest of DnT were elitists.

Not even mythic raiders in WoW expect that and that environment can get more toxic fast.

a full none damage tank has been seen in successful raid kills, your nomad thief comment is sheer asinine and misses the point almost completely. You literally have to be off your rock to think that’s a valid statement.

These bosses have been downed with groups that have no idea what a meta build is
These bosses have been downed with people with disabilities ALOT of disabilities
These bosses have been downed with people who have trouble seeing let alone staying ALIVE due to health problems

If you have a computer that can handle the game and if you have a pulse, you can raid. You literally either need to be in a coma or not have sufficient computer specs to not have the ability to raid

ChrizZcE.5981:

Thaddeus.4891:

ChrizZcE.5981:

The most skilled players that do the hardest content in the game are always broke while the people that run from chest to chest and hit “F” for hours everyday have the best in slot gear and the coolest looking chars.

It´s nuts.

Do you consider yourself one of the most skilled players? I certainly don’t. But all the skilled players that I know are richer than me.

…and they would be a lot richer if they spent all their time chest farming instead of doing content.

chest farming is a bottom of the barrel money making scheme that you do if you dont want to think.

people with skill will use skill to understand a concept to make money, for example, playing the BLT

Gewd.8125:

It has been a long time, but I don’t remember it ever being as hard. And you are comparing the 1st wing of the GW2 raid to the 6th wing of vanilla wow.

And yes farming equipment was very grindy but at least it wasn’t hard.

and whats so hard about farming gear in GW2? you don’t even need to kill a 40 man boss for it to even be allowed to do other content . You can literally chop trees and mine nodes your way to BiS stats in GW2.

I
Don’t
Understand.
At
ALL

The first couple bosses in Molten Core still required a significant amount of time to learn in comparison to anything spirit vale.

Gewd.8125:

Let me preface this by saying I have the eternal title.

Having said that, I have to disagree with almost everything you’ve said.

Gw2 raids are not casual friendly. Simply being able to post an LFG does not make it simple. From my experience, you would have to wait at least an hour before you could fill 9 spots and you will probably have people leaving while you are adding people from LFG. Then you will have more leavers after constant wipes. Anyone who has the time and patience for this, I would not classify as casual.

I also find it strange that raids are now supposed to be as hard as possible. Up until WoW: TBC, raids were all about having fun in a large party, with a few skilled players being able to carry the entire group.

And for some strange reason raids has changed into the hardest content possible where you wait dozens of hours for your dumbest teammate to learn the mechanics and then feel elated when they stop screwing up and generally never feel like doing it again.

You must have some expensive rose tinted goggles there to paint vanilla WoW raids as hello kitty island adventures flowers and sunshine. Did you even do black wing lair?

1. Vaelastrasz alone was not idiot friendly, if you didn’t move off in time there goes the raid and that debuff had a tight timer. Sabetha’s bomb in comparison doesn’t even instantly down you.
2. Nothing in GW2 even comes close to Nefarian black and red let alone easier combos, don’t even try it
3. The amount of time you had to spend crafting EVERYONE onyxia scale cloaks WHICH WAS BASICALLY A HARD GATE dwarfs ascended armor grinding
4. SUPPRESSION ROOM
5. Do you know how much blood, sweat, and tears went into crafting that one person out of 40 of you the Hand of Ragnaros? Have you any IDEA how much easier legendary weapons in GW2 is?

Raiding in pre WoW TBC was a full time job of overworld mat gathering and 6 hours of raid attempts 4 days a week average, a raid admin to keep track of DKP and people, it was in no way casual friendly.

Firebird Gomer.9563:

Rising Dusk.2408:

As for the OP, I seriously expect that raids will be nothing but positive for the game. It’s just new content, so people who really aren’t suited for raids are trying them and worrying about them when they shouldn’t.

Rising I am sorry but this is a TERRIBLE statement.

Content should be available for everyone. That’s what games are about paying for the right to play everything in the game.

You are not barred from playing the game as long as

1. you meet the minimum system requirements of the game
2. you can operate the input devices of your system
3. you have a stable internet connection to handle the network weight of an MMO

I play with a lot of different types of people, some of which who are color blind, missing limbs, on psych meds, etc and I have seen many of these people progress through the raid at a healthy rate.

I don’t get how else you can make this more accessible, I honestly don’t, the first 3 points are basically mandatory for any game you play.

eldrin.6471:

The people buying large amounts of gems are not and never will be the same people that can do raids.and by marginalizing the people who are the life blood of this game anet have committed economic suicide.

I probably drop triple what you drop on gems, don’t even go there.

pretty much all of the pre 80 stuff has gone up

go level a new character

kittenzam more moneys

Those of you hurting on cash,

Look at the material prices on the broker
See at whats feasible to farm
Look at where it drops
Go Farm

P.S. Dungeons aren’t dead, hint hint hint hint hint hint hint hint hint hint hint hint if you get my drift, if you’re picking up what I’m putting down, if you catch my drift, if you’re buying what I’m selling, if you’re dancing to my tune, if you’re eating what imma cookin.

Hi Everyone,

With the most recent announcement in regards to raid testing I would like to share a couple things myself, namely the story of my cousins childhood as well as the weight of what it means to be hand picked from millions of people to do VIP content testing within the specific gaming community. Depending on what NDA restrictions are present during the Anet raid testing initiative, this may or may not apply.

In short ITS A BIG DEAL not just for the popularity of your guild but the potential future of your very own career within the gaming industry. As much as we all love MMO Gaming, sooner or later you’re going to want to be a bigger part of that experience, that movement, to be a part of that soul that changes and grows people into who they are today, to give back to the gaming community itself by sharing your very own ideas, creativity, your passion.

I can only think of my cousin’s childhood friend whom visited us in Canada to get himself sloshed and hammered, party animal 420 (essentially to live the life of a Canadian) who I later discovered was a co-producer for one of World of Warcraft’s expansions. How did he start off in the business? well, aside from completing his university courses he got his foot in the door doing QA just like everyone else, even before then he was just like us, a common player with a passion for the product. Sounds simple enough? of course, but even better. During the interview process when applying for a job at blizzard, they do prod you with WoW questions, what do you know? do you test constantly on the beta clients? what have you reported? what was the most game breaking bug you dicovered? The list goes on.

Why does it matter to you guys?

Its simple really.

Those who get hand picked to do so out of millions via Anet are being given the VIP opportunity to arm yourself with those interview destroying answers the moment they pop up, you are literally first in line, you were hand picked out of millions of players to provide a VIP opportunity to help shape content to ensure its successful reception. It’s literally a one on one once in a lifetime opportunity to do something that could potentially benefit your future if gaming is your passion. Will Anet allow you to be so proud of your partnership with them to allow this opportunity to be recorded on a resume? obviously I wouldn’t know but wouldn’t it be awesome if that were true?

Attuned already has been text book about the relationship but for those of you who may potentially get this chance, I’ve got some bullet points, most obviously are well, obvious.

Be Professional
- During the test, during the game, whatever, always be professional. Yes you have free rights to do whatever the hell you want with your life but at the expectation that you are willing to face the consequences of those actions. Freedom of choice doesn’t mean do without worry of consequence less you end up just like DnT.

A Positive Relationship Is A Lasting Relationship
- Not always true, but generally. Even if things don’t go your way and raid testers get picked fresh again. Maintaining a positive product relationship will still help prevent pot holes from forming in your road to victory, that doesn’t mean a storm isn’t going to come out of no where and flood the entire road though.

I’ve got a giant list of bullet points but I believe I am hitting my char cap but for those of you who are testing, the possibilities are literally endless. Don’t scoff at the opportunity that many could dream to have, its not “just raid testing” it is so much more than that. Be proud of the product, wear it like its your personal country flag.

Mitch.4781:

IllegalChocolate, Raids have the potential to be much worse though simply because of the time invested in them. There is a hell of a big difference between runnign a 10 minute dungeon and wiping for 4 hours in a Raid. Tempers can get extremely frayed….

You are talking to someone who was a raid leader for years in WoW.

I did not tolerate cliques, it was confronted, weeds were pulled out and our guild lasted for quite a while, a lot of us still talk to each other on facebook etc even though many moved on with their lives we were a family and succeeded as such.

The dungeon community in GW2 was worse than anything I ever seen in my time raiding in WoW and I have had to deal with a lot of bull in WoW in a leadership position. The Zerker Meta ideology was literally Rock Bottom.

Mitch.4781:

Well it’s just I saw this type of thing happen in WOW. I remember the day I decided to quit wow was when we spent 4 hours raiding one sunday and our raid leader lost it at this hunter over vent for dying. The Hunter was a sweet guy in his 40’s and I felt very bad for him.

Just don’t want that kind of mentality to inflict this game. However, since writing this thread, I’ve decided to just let it go. I’m not goign to let raiding in a game annoy me again. Like I said earlier, at least you don;t get better gear. One saving grace.

We’ve had this mentality in dungeons already for the past 3 years by the six what are you talking about.

When did you start playing GW2? Have you seen the map chat in dragon’s stand when we fail the meta event? We have had poor attitude since day 1. You cannot turn a devil into a saint if he chooses to be the devil and is proud of it, you will burn yourself trying.

Mitch, raids will not destroy your guild, the social cliques in a guild will. If those people can’t think for the whole of the family then they are not family period.

This is the raiding mentality here; if you are not in it for the whole then you are not in it period.

To be a successful raid guild, that is a raiding guild that will not break apart, you must think like a functioning family. That is the core essence of a guild built for lasting power in mind and is the only relationship that is impervious through harsh times.

That is a problem with your people not with raids. If that is what they resort to that is their true colors, that is who they are in reality.

Many people in my guild are new to any form of PvE content that requires extreme commitment, did we enforce separations and elitist behavior? no.

The whole point of raiding isn’t the loot, it really isn’t, that’s just a carrot on the stick. The whole point of raiding is to build communication and social skills within the test pool of people affected.

Read this please for reference.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/can-warcraft-game-skills-help-land-a-job-1407885660

In short, its an offset environment designed to help promote growth in an artificial environment where failing and succeeding are mere elements to the overall design goal, you know, what videogames were actually originally suppose to be, not some faux power fantasy ala candy crush black lion chest gambling.

If the people in your guild don’t get that, I would suggest seeking a guild who will appreciate giving you opportunity, something that is your right.

timmyf.1490:

Windsagio.1340:

What they were saying was still hurting ANet

If negative comments about ArenaNet or their content get you kicked from partner programs/raid testing/whatever, I think there’s a long list of people who apparently got exceptions (and continue to get them regularly). And if being salty, offensive, or childish gets you kicked, I can think of a handful of streamers ArenaNet regularly promotes who deserve the boot.

This seems inconsistent with ArenaNet’s past actions and specific to either a) raids or b) DnT. In the end, ArenaNet gets to make their own decisions about who to include or not include. No problem there. But the public shaming on the forums, including leaving the post open for comments (and then almost certainly abuse) seems out of character for them and (imho) rather distasteful.

Arena Net gave DnT VIP Level access to pre released content to try and ensure the PvE content is where it needs to be. If you were Anet and DnT did a complete smear job the moment you turned your cheek would you still work with them? I wouldn’t

Let me remind you that this new instanced PvE content is a HUGE DEAL we have seen VERY LITTLE support to our PvE community that favors closed instanced scenarios and in some cases that “support” was unfavored. If any of you care about PvE instanced content you will make sure that whatever statements you make maintains constructive momentum not the opposite like belittling the content with no measurable points of information.

DnT basically said kitten you to the entire raiding scene.

-DnT has no respect for what it means to be a Raider and sabotaged it’s very momentum by posting all those tweets. DnT caused harm to the very effort we have been asking for years
-I want GW2 raiding to be one of the most popular things on twitch and in other forms of media

What do you want timmy? I am curious if you actually want raiding to maintain longevity and health right now I am not so certain.

Windsagio.1340:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Windsagio.1340:

There is no ‘punishment’, they’re just not going to be testers any more

D’aaw nothing?

I was going to buy gems and everything.

I guess you could count being scolded like a naughty 2 year old a punishment?

You’re gonna have to try harder than that to sell me on that gem purchase

*waves around credit card.

Uh no, the casual gamer did not build the Guild Wars franchise, Guild Wars 1 was one of the original E Sports, it had a world tournament league.

Windsagio.1340:

There is no ‘punishment’, they’re just not going to be testers any more

D’aaw nothing?

I was going to buy gems and everything.

I think when DnT dissolved back in WoW many people popped open bottles of champagne in celebration of their demise.

History tends to repeat itself, I wonder if it repeat once again.